On February 17 2010, marking two years since it unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, Kosovo expressed high hopes about United Nations membership, vowed to work to get more countries to recognise it – and invited Serbia to join the ranks of those who did.
 
Belgrade, in turn, reaffirmed its continued rejection of Kosovo as independent, and claimed a success by saying that less than a third of the world's countries deemed Kosovo to be an independent state.
 
Asked by Austrian daily Der Standard in an interview on February 16 whether Kosovo would join the EU by the end of this decade, its foreign minister, Skender Hyseni, said: "I am optimistic that we will be in before that".
 
Hyseni, in an EUObserver report quoted by Bulgarian news agency Focus, forecast that the five remaining EU countries that do not recognise Kosovo - Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain - would reconsider their position after the international court in The Hague rules on the legality of its status, a move expected in June 2010.
 
"My impression is that those states who don't recognise [Kosovo] can expect friendly pressure from others. Greece is going in the right direction," Hyseni said.
 
Recent days have seen claims in Pristina that Greece would do a volte-face on its rejection of Kosovo’s declaration of independence. Athens has officially rejected these claims.
 
Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci, interviewed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, named the consolidation of statehood, the establishment of the rule of law, political and economic reforms, and membership in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as the highlights of the two years since the declaration of independence.
 
Kosovo has been recognised by 65 countries, including the United States and 22 of the 27 EU member states.
 
Serbian news agency Tanjug quoted Kosovo president Fatmir Sejdiu as saying that Pristina was focusing all efforts to secure new recognitions.
 
Sejdiu said that "Kosovo has good relations with its neighbours in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro".
 
He "called on Serbia to recognise Kosovo’s independence as well", according to Albanian news agency ATA.
 
In Belgrade, Serbia’s minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanović praised Serbia's diplomacy in its efforts to preserve Kosovo as part of Serbia, Tanjug said.
 
Bogdanović told Serbian state broadcaster RTS that Belgrade had been successful in the previous two years, "given that less than a third of the world countries have recognised Kosovo".
 
"Two-thirds of the states in the world have recognised international law and territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia that has put great efforts to improve the situation in Serbia's southern province," Bogdanović said.